Beastly: lindys diary
by ryanwalkercannon
Summary: This is the real book


i don't own this i wish I did

* * *

May 10  
Tonight, when I got home, there was a man on our doorstep, lurking. I knew he was looking for my dad. I'd seen him before, hunched over, with knifelike features, the wolf in his eyes. My dad's pusher. If he was waiting to make a delivery, it was bad. If he wanted to be paid, that was worse.  
I used to feel like confronting those guys, asking them how they could do this, how they could sell drugs to a pathetic middle-aged man who'd lost everything and couldn't deal with the world. My sisters told me not to.  
These guys didn't see Dad as human. They weren't human themselves. Now, my sisters are long gone, but I know they were right.  
So I walked around the block.  
Four times.  
When I came back, the man was gone. I knew that meant Dad was inside.  
Someday, something really bad is going to happen. I don't know whether to hope I'm around for it or hope I'm not.  
My father had his back to me when I came in. We didn't acknowledge each other. I couldn't look at him. So I started picking stuff up off the counter.  
He said, "Do you have to do that? It's really loud." That was all he could say to me?  
No, no, actually, it wasn't. He followed up with, "We got any food?"  
I was holding a loaf of day-old bread from the grocery store where I work part-time. For a second, I really wanted to chuck it at his head, but I said, "There's bread." I set it down on the table on the other side of the room, figured I'd make him walk to get it at least. But he said,  
"Make me a sandwich. Will you, sweetie?" And I gave in like I always do. "We only have peanut butter," I told him.  
He grumbled a little but finally said, "Sure." I restrained myself from saying that he could go out and work and earn money for something better than peanut butter. It didn't help. I made the sandwich and thrust it into his shaking hand. I didn't even wince at the network of railroad tracks on his arm.  
I went to the library to do my homework, wondering why I'd even bothered to come home.  
When I got back, the sandwich was untouched. I took it down to the Dumpster before the roaches (or rats) got it.  
Sometimes, you wonder when your handsome prince is going to show up and rescue you.  
I know that's not a popular sentiment, or a PC one. A modern woman is supposed to take care of herself. But I've been taking care of myself since my mom died, when I was seven. That's when Dad went off the deep end. My sisters helped when they were there, but after a while, they bailed. I don't really blame them. For the past two years, if I wanted to eat, I found food. If I wanted a roof over my head, I made sure the rent was paid. I worked. I tutored. I begged the landlord for more time. If I wanted to go to school, I got myself there. No one does anything for me.  
So I know when I meet the right guy, it's not going to be someone like my dad. It's not going to be someone who needs me. It's going to be someone who can, for once in my life, be a hero.

I was beginning to wonder if I'd hallucinated our previous conversation (followed, as it was, by eight months of silence on his part, punctuated by the occasional could-be-my-imagination nod in the hall ). I realized that, okay, maybe we hadn't made a connection that day back in September. Maybe, I thought, Kyle Kingsbury is exactly the kind of jerk people think he is. Maybe he'd been playing me before, and he really did think I was beneath him.  
But tonight, he spoke to me, not only spoke to me, but actually gave me a flower.  
Here's how it happened.  
I was taking tickets, like a pathetic drone, wearing this white blouse they made all the workers wear, so I looked like a total geek, when Kyle showed up with Sloane. I noticed immediately because people started gathering around the table when they came in, trying to bask in their light. But something was off.  
I don't know if Sloane was just not speaking to Kyle or if she was actually high, but she flounced in ahead of him, not making eye contact, and joined her covey (or is it coven?) of friends.  
Kyle, looking like he needed a friend too, leaned against my table and produced two tickets. "That one's for her, when she decides to come in." He jutted his thumb at Sloane.  
I ripped his tickets and noticed he was holding a corsage, a white rose with a light blue ribbon. I've always loved roses.  
"Pretty flower," I said.  
He glanced at it, flipping it in his hand like he'd forgotten he had it. "Oh, yeah."  
I wanted to say that a white rose represented purity and innocence, but I recognized that it would be a completely dorkified thing to say. So, in trying to avoid saying the dorky thing, I said nothing at all. I looked away, pretending to count the ripped ticket halves.  
Yet he still stood there. I felt his presence, magnetic.  
Stupid Sloane doesn't know how lucky she is. If I could go to a dance with Kyle, have him give me a rose, I'd be completely happy. Or, at least, happy enough not to be a complete . . . never mind!  
"Hey, do you want it?" he asked.  
"What?" My head snapped back toward him.  
He held up the flower. "Here. Take it."  
"That's not nice."  
"What isn't?"  
"Goofing on me, pretending you're going to give it to me, then taking it back." That had to be it, of course. Why would he give me Sloane's corsage? If there's anything I've learned in these years of being my father's daughter, it's how to protect myself.  
He protested. "I wasn't pretending. You can have it." He held it up. The ribbon exactly matched his blue eyes. "It's not the right color for my girlfriend's dress or something, so she won't wear it. It's going to die, so you might as well take it."  
I glanced at Sloane. Her dress was black, which goes with everything, but probably, the corsage wasn't expensive enough for her. Sloane probably needed an orchid fresh-picked today in Brazil and airlifted in for her pleasure. With a ribbon made of thousand-dollar bills.  
"Since you put it that way." I started to take it from him but, at the very last minute, he pulled it back. "Let me." And he pinned it on my ugly blouse. I let him. The gesture had more intimacy than I'd expected, the back of his hand brushing my neck as he pinned it on.  
"Thanks," I said. "It's beautiful."  
"Enjoy it . . . Linda." He smiled.  
And for that second, it was like he and I were the only two people in the room. I inhaled deeply. Some roses, the ones you buy cheap from guys on the street, don't have much scent, but this one did. I remembered my father, in one of his lucid moments, telling me that smell was the sense most associated with memory and that whenever he smelled a certain lemony-scented perfume, it reminded him of my mother (which made me want to either buy a lifetime supply of it or destroy every bottle). I know that, for as long as I live, I'll associate the scent of roses with him, with Kyle. I was trying to think of something to say, something more than thanks, but he'd already moved away and was talking to, of all people, Kendra Hilferty, this emo girl from my chem class.  
I inhaled again. Probably better to dream.  
The rest of the night, I took tickets and picked up discarded cups and tried not to pay attention to Kyle laughing, Kyle talking, Kyle being crowned dance royalty.  
I mean, it's too pathetic to be stalking the popular guy.  
But I enjoyed watching him. He was so opposite the way I was, so full of life and energy, and yet, I knew he and I were alike deep down. Deep down, we were both lonely.  
He was just better at hiding it.  
I took the rose home and pressed it between the pages of Atlas Shrugged, which is the biggest book I own.  
Hokey, I know, but I honestly believe that sometimes, there's more to people than meets the eye.

He's gone.  
Kyle hasn't been to school in over a week, not since the night of the dance.  
The rumors are all over the place. He got mono. From Sloane. He got a modeling contract in France. He went to Florida to live with his mom. No, he's in rehab. And then, he's going to boarding school next year. Sloane is shockingly quiet on the subject. In fact, she's dating someone else.  
WHERE IS KYLE?  
Though I'd rather believe he has mono, rehab is the most persistent rumor. It's probably true. It's typical, after all.  
There are no heroes in the world, only good-looking vill ains. People at school relish this gossip. On Kyle, drugs sound glamorous, I guess, like something rock stars do. But I only have to look at my father, emaciated, sick, shaking, willing to do anything for his next fix, to know that ADDICTION IS NOT SEXY!  
I wish him in Florida with his mother instead, and at night, I look at his picture in the yearbook, or I open the pages of Atlas Shrugged, inhale the waning scent of the rose he gave me, and dream of what might have been.  
Stupid, stupid girl.  
June 13—A Year Later  
I haven't written in a while, over a year, actually. I guess that's telling. It's sad how often I used to write about Kyle Kingsbury, but what else in my life was, or is, interesting?  
Still, I like the idea of a journal. It keeps my head straight.  
But the sad fact is, I have nothing to write about, nothing except my clichéd crush on a strung out pretty boy.  
I suppose I should write about my everyday life—  
interesting. That's what Samuel Pepys did. His journal (circa 1665) is filled with detailed and ultra-scintil ating accounts of the wine he drank, the cloaks he wore. It's considered an important primary source for information regarding life in 17th Century London.  
But I doubt anyone will be researching 21st Century Brownsvil e or consult my diary if they are. Still, I'll try to be better. I need to write. It makes the real world seem far less real.

In case I was worried about not having enough to write about, I shouldn't have been. My father always provides material, sooner or later.  
In this case, he's completely insane!  
Usually, I'm pretty good at ignoring noises in the night.  
This is an important skil for people who live in New York City and even more so for people whose fathers are engaged in low-grade criminal activity—particularly if those people need to study. I've slept through banging on the door, even gunshots.  
But tonight, my father burst into the apartment. He was messed up, babbling about cops who were going to arrest him, drug dealers, a monster, a freak. His hands were shaking, and his eyes were wide. If he wasn't high, he needed a fix.  
I asked him to go sleep it off. Repeatedly, I asked him.  
Tell me in the morning. He wouldn't leave.  
Finally, I got the story (if any of it was even true) out of him.  
He was bad in debt. His pusher, a mean mother named Hob, wasn't taking no for an answer this time. He'd threatened to hunt me down, to kill me (me!), if Dad didn't pay him.  
"How much do you need?" I reached for my wall et, which I kept in my pocket at all times, figuring this was just another scam to get drug money from me and too tired to resist.  
But he said, "Too much. You don't have it." And then, he started to cry. He couldn't pay. He was freaking out, but finally, he'd come up with a solution.  
With surprising clarity, he told me about it. He'd called an old friend, a hitherto completely unknown-to-me friend who owed him a favor. I was surprised he had any favors to call in, but he actually had a lot of details. The friend lived in Brooklyn. He traveled a lot, but he had a son my age, a freakish kid who needed a companion. I could stay with him until it blew over and it was safe for me to come home.  
A freak? Were there even freaks anymore? I asked my dad what he meant by freak, and that's when the lucid moment ended. He started describing a creature more animal than man, a wolf-boy with fangs and claws, hair all over his body. "But he'll protect you," he promised.  
Yeah, right.  
I was pretty sure my dad was delusional or, let's face it, stoned out of his mind. There's no such thing as a wolf-boy. Well, not outside of the movies.  
"Right. You want me to live with some stranger? What if he . . . attacks me?"  
"There's someone else living there, a housekeeper or something. It's the only way. Please, Lindy. It's the only way to save us, um, you."  
At this point, I couldn't process any more of this, especially not on an hour's sleep. I told him to go away.  
I'd talk to him in the morning.  
I've been up ever since.  
The obvious fact is, my father is kicking me out of the apartment and coming up with some lame story to hide it.  
I should probably be happy he even found me someplace else. Do I need my father? To live? Well, no. I've been making my own money since I was thirteen and got kids at Tuttle to pay me for "helping" them with papers. At worst, I'll end up in foster care, which probably won't be any worse than where I am now. I certainly don't need him for emotional support, though I'd miss him. He is my dad.  
But there could be real danger. My father's friends aren't exactly professors at Columbia. That's for sure. We've been on the lam before. Once, when I was nine, we hid in Staten Island for almost a year with a friend of his, and my father never left the house.  
My father is never concerned about me or my safety, only his own. And yet, he seemed so afraid just now that I wonder if he really could be, for once. When I was little, he used to hold my hand when I crossed the street. He used to kiss my knee when I fell. Maybe it's like that again.  
Doubtful. Would I be any safer with some "friend" my father could produce? Possibly. Once, before my mom died, my father was a respectable person. Maybe there's someone from that previous life who still cares about him, who would take pity on him, take pity on me.  
The teenage freak son is a strange detail, strange even for my father. Freak. An odd, obsolete, un-PC word, a lonely word that sounds like something from the Victorian era. There were news stories about the man in Indonesia whose skin looked like tree bark, the conjoined twins in Iran, joined at the head. Could he be like that?  
It's intriguing. I've always felt like a freak myself. When I went to school in the neighborhood, the kids would stare at me because I was reading, because I cared about school. Now, at Tuttle, I'm freakish for other reasons.  
But what would it be like, to wear my freakishness on the outside, to have it be obvious to the world?  
Or is it already?  
In Jane Eyre, one of my favorite books, there is a point where Jane realizes that she will never have freedom (liberty, she calls it, since it's a Victorian novel), because of her condition of poverty, plainness, and friendlessness. But at least she may have a different kind of servitude. This is what inspires her to leave her position as a teacher at the horrible Lowood Institution and, instead, become a governess. A new servitude, but one of her own choosing.  
I don't know if what my father says is true, or why my father wants me to go live with this wolf-boy, this freak, but suddenly, I know I won't run away from it. I know that, like Jane, I will go.I just have to get something from my father in return.  
He'd hit bottom.

Still, I called my sister Sarah and got her to agree that she and her (big) boyfriend would pick him up and take him in. They promised not to take no for an answer.  
I didn't tell her why, that I was going to live with some stranger. She might try to talk me out of it, and I'm determined to go.  
So I'm going.  
Which, amazingly, probably isn't the craziest thing I've ever done.  
He'd hit bottom. Still, I called my sister Sarah and got her to agree that she and her (big) boyfriend would pick him up and take him in. They promised not to take no for an answer.  
I didn't tell her why, that I was going to live with some stranger. She might try to talk me out of it, and I'm determined to go.  
So I'm going.  
Which, amazingly, probably isn't the craziest thing I've ever done.

I'm here.  
I don't know what I was expecting, a dungeon, maybe, or a torture chamber, my captor in a hood or one of those medieval masks, invisible servants or clocks and candlesticks like in the Beauty and the Beast cartoon.  
Maybe.  
I got none of it. My new "home" is a normal brownstone in a neighborhood too nice for me to know. No wolf-boy in sight. Instead, when I got here, the door was opened by a man who said his name was Will. He said he was the tutor. He's blind.  
I said, "My father has the crazy idea there's a monster here." I glanced over at him, and he looked down.  
"No monster, miss," Will said, "My employer is a young man of, I am told, unfortunate appearance. He doesn't go outside because of it. That's all."  
Man, he really was a freak.  
I asked him if that meant I was free to leave if I changed my mind. Will nodded, but said, "Yes, but my employer struck a deal with your father, I believe—your presence here in exchange for his cooperation in not reporting certain criminal acts which were caught on tape. Which reminds me . . ." He reached into his pocket and took out a bag I knew all too well. "Your drugs, sir?" WHAT? I glared at my father. The liar. LIAR! He'd lied about everything. There was no danger, at least, no danger to me. He just wanted me to come here to keep his butt out of jail. LIAR.  
Why was I surprised? Everything my father did was a lie.  
"He caught me on tape," my father admitted. "Breaking and entering."  
Of course.  
"The drugs would result in a serious sentence, I believe," Will said.  
My father nodded. "Minimum mandatory—fifteen years to life."  
Un-freaking-real. "And you agree to this?" I demanded of Will. "My imprisonment?"  
He said, "My employer will treat you well —better, probably, than . . ."  
I laughed. It was blackmail, that's what it was. And he was saying the blackmailer would treat me better? And yet, he might be right. I got it. Wolf-boy had seen my father. He knew he was a total scum. He was lonely and thought I'd be safer here than with him. He was probably right—even if he was a blackmailing scumbag. I should have left. But, in some little codependent place in my heart, I didn't want my father to go to jail. I had to do this. I wanted my father to go to rehab.  
A new servitude. I have to make the best of this. After all, what's the worst that can happen? You can't be held captive in the middle of New York City. If it got too bad, I could always scream and someone would come.  
I hoped.  
I gave my father a look that said he owed me, and he was gone. Gone without even saying good-bye. I wanted to cry, but I found I couldn't.  
Will, seeming to sense how deflated I felt, changed the subject.  
"I can tell you've had a hard day, even though it's only ten o'clock. Come. I'll show you to your rooms."  
"Rooms? With an s?"  
"Yes, miss. They're beautiful rooms. Master Adrian—the young man I work for—wants you to be happy here." I laughed. Happy. Sure thing.  
I noticed he locked the door with a key. The sound had a terrible finality. What had I done?  
Still, I followed him upstairs. I thought I saw a shadow on the staircase, but it might have been my imagination. I didn't want to see Will 's "employer," the wolf-boy, my captor. Just because I was staying didn't mean we were going to be friends.  
He did, indeed, mean rooms.  
When we reached my suite, the first thing I noticed were the words Lindy's Room painted in gold on the door.  
Stalkerish much? The second, once I opened it, was the scent of roses that greeted my nose.  
Roses. I thought of Kyle. Poor, stupid Kyle. But, of course, he wasn't there. That night seems so long ago.  
I have to admit, I gasped when I entered the room. I found that the scent came from a hundred roses, maybe more, all in vases on every surface.  
Will must have sensed my confusion. "My employer grows roses," he said.  
"He grew these?"  
"He thought you might like them."  
I nodded and entered.  
I've never been a materialistic person. But then, I've never had much to be materialistic about. Is it wrong that I felt better about the place once I saw that my "rooms" were a whole floor of the house, that they had walls freshly painted a creamy yellow, my favorite color, and wooden floors and crown moldings? A madman wouldn't create such a palace for someone he intended to rape and murder, would he?  
But maybe this was his game, like this play I once saw, where this elderly couple kept inviting young girls back to their home using a ruse, when really, they intended to kill them.  
But, even if that wasn't it, did he think we were going to have some kind of ROMANCE, like he created this romantic hideaway for me, and I was going to fall in love with him when he'd basically kidnapped me?  
What have I gotten myself into? I could always leave, if I don't mind my father being thrown in jail. I shouldn't mind, but sad to say, I do.  
Will reassured me that Adrian meant me no harm, that he was just lonely. "Perhaps if you give it a chance, you won't find it so terrible living here." I checked out the closets, looking for torture devices, handcuffs, ropes.  
Instead, I found clothes, lots of them, what looked like the entire juniors department of Bloomingdale's, all my size, too. How had he known my size? That sounded really stalkerish. And where was I going to wear this stuff? To entertain him? For this romantic fantasy he was having?  
But in the next room, I found a surprise I did like. Books!  
Books from floor to ceiling, and not just any musty old books, but books by my favorite authors—by Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter S. Thompson, and Jane Austen. The complete Shakespeare and the complete M. T.  
Anderson. Even some cool nonfiction titles. There were ladders to reach all the way to the top.  
I was a prisoner, but the prison library was excellent.  
On one table in the corner, I found an e-reader with a note that said, "In case I forgot anything." I don't like to think I can be bought, but if I could, this guy definitely knew the currency. Roses and books—I could survive in these rooms forever.  
I said, "When I was a kid, I used to like to go to the library, because it was safe there. That's how I got to love reading so much."  
Will said, "You're safe here."  
I laughed. "Safe?"  
Will said, "Yes, safe. That story, whatever your father told you, is a lie, but you will be safe here. I wouldn't go along with it if that wasn't the case. Adrian only wants a companion. Live here a year. I'll tutor you, and you can take the state tests, like the home-schooled kids do. At the end of the year, you'll be alive, safe, and a year closer to graduation. Can you say the same if you stay with your father?"  
I thought about it and said, "I think I need to be alone now."  
Will nodded and left. I walked around a bit more, examining, then I collapsed onto the bed and started to cry—not because I'm trapped here. I came here of my own accord. No, I was crying because I realized Will was probably right. I probably was better off here, here where I am warmer, cleaner, safer than anyplace I've ever been before. Here, there's no risk of being evicted, no risk of evil men pounding my door at night. Some people never have to worry about those things, but I'm not so lucky.  
After I finished crying, I spent the next two hours reading a book of Shakespeare's sonnets, comfort food for my uncomfortable mind. At noon, there was a knock. I ignored it.  
"Excuse me, miss. I have lunch."  
It was a woman's voice, a maid, maybe. Not wanting to be rude, I opened the door.  
She had been in the act of leaving a tray. Now, she held it out. "hello, you must be Linda. I am Magda." out. "hello, you must be Linda. I am Magda."  
"You work here?" I asked.  
She told me she did, and that if I told her what I liked for lunch, she'd buy it.  
Like Will before her, she assured me I was safe.  
I told her thank you, but I wasn't hungry.  
An hour later, I found a note under my door. It said: Dear Lindy,Welcome! Do not be afraid. I hope you will be comfortable in your new home. Whatever you want, you only have to ask. I will see that you get it immediately.I am looking forward to meeting you at dinner tonight. I want you to like me. Sincerely, Adrian King  
He did think we were going to have some romance! He thought he could trap me, kidnap me, whatever you called it, buy me, and I'd just go along with it. Well, that was definitely not going to happen. I wrote, "NO!" on the note in big letters and slipped it back under the door.  
I went back to sonnets.  
An hour later, he was there in person, begging me to come out, talking about the favor (!) he was doing, getting me away from my dad. And again, an hour after that, all apologetic. "I hope we can be friends someday," he said. "I understand if you're . . ." He didn't finish the sentence. I didn't ask him to.  
Still, I wondered what he looked like, what had happened to him. Clearly, Will couldn't tell me, and I hadn't believed my father.  
Where were Adrian's parents? Now that I knew Dad's story was a lie, I wondered if any of it was true.  
I wondered where my father was too, if he was safe.  
Much as I hated what he did sometimes, he was still my father.

The past three days, I haven't left my room at all. I'll admit I've been sulking, a luxury I don't get at home. I've talked to no one except Magda, and her only because I don't want to be rude when she brings my meals. Each time, she brings a different rose, a different color, and each time, she points it out to me, saying something like, "If you cut a rose in early morning, it lasts longer," or, "A coral rose symbolizes admiration and friendship." Each time, I thank her and go back to reading. In two days, I've read all of Shakespeare's sonnets and four plays. I'm halfway through a book, The Woman in White, which is over seven hundred pages long. I'm starting to lose touch with reality, but reality sort of sucks.  
Since I've always lived in apartments, I'm used to hearing other people's sounds that have nothing to do with me.  
I've long known that our neighbor, Mr. Estevez, farts every morning at 5:30 and that when the Wolfs (or is it Wolves?) have a fight about money, she threatens to move in with her sister. I know that Angela Lester, who lives downstairs and isn't much older than I am, has two kids, a boy and a girl. When I can hear from her voice that she's had it, I offer to watch them.  
This house is a little different, though. I live with these people, but I don't know them. I guess that Will and Magda live in the bedrooms above mine. Sometimes, I hear Spanish-language radio from the left side or NPR  
from the right. I wouldn't mind discussing NPR with Will.  
The kitchen and common areas are below me, and I smell cooking smells and hear vacuuming or Magda singing during the day. She has a beautiful voice and loves opera.  
Since the first day, Adrian has made no attempt to speak to me. I assume his rooms are either on the top floor of the house or in the basement, not connected with mine.  
Only late at night do I hear someone pacing the halls below me, someone surfing channels, watching old movies on TV, someone who can't sleep. I'm sure it's him. Adrian.  
I suppose I should be happy he's not up here, attacking me in the night, and I AM. Believe me, I am.  
But the weird thing is, I'm starting to feel lonely. Yes, I'm getting a lot of reading done, which is great, but I sort of wish Adrian would ask me to come out again. Or Will would offer to tutor me. I might say yes this time. I miss talking to people.  
Adrian is downstairs right now. I can hear the television go on and the channels being changed. He settles on a movie, Forrest Gump. I hear Robin Wright yelling, "Run, Forrest!"  
He obviously has decent taste in movies. I mean, most guys my age, unsupervised, would be watching porn or, at least, something with lots of explosions.  
Maybe I'll watch it too. Up here in my room.  
Good-night for now.

July 23  
I had the strangest dream.  
I fell asleep early and woke to hear a clock striking midnight. Funny, I'd heard no clock before. I couldn't get back to sleep, so I went to find my book.  
That's when I saw the bird. I'm pretty sure it was a crow, but it sat on the top of my doorframe, like the raven in Edgar All an Poe's poem "The Raven," and like that raven, it was tap-tap-tapping.  
"What?" I said.  
Then, the crow transformed into a woman, and she began singing in a strange, almost unearthly way, operatic, yet without words or maybe with strange, garbled words, and in a tune that was equally mangled.  
She sounded almost like a theremin, this weird instrument they use in old horror movies.  
The weird thing was, I recognized her. It was Kendra, from my school, that girl who'd been talking to Kyle the last day I saw him.  
She was dressed all in white, a flowing dress that surrounded her like a Greek goddess's robes. She raised her hand, beckoning to me to follow her.  
I did. She left the room. I don't remember the door opening, but I followed, as if by magic, out of the room and down a staircase to the second floor. This, I knew, was the floor I'd seen when I came in, the living area of the house. I hadn't looked around much. Now I did.  
The room was beautiful, with shiny wooden floors and high ceilings, but it barely looked lived in. No mess, for sure, but nothing personal, either—no photographs, no books, magazines, or art, even on the walls, as if it had been put together hastily, more like a decorator's model than a real home.  
Kendra beckoned to me from the window, where she had gone seemingly without walking. I obeyed and stood by it, wanting to drink in the full moon. When I was little, I always imagined the moon following me down the street.  
Now, in someplace so lonely and different, it comforted me to see it still.  
When I reached the window, I stepped back.  
I had been wrong to believe no one was awake.  
Someone was, and he was out in the greenhouse. My own room had no window that overlooked it, but now that I saw it, I gasped.  
Hundreds of roses—red, yellow, pink, coral, white, even purple—roses climbing on trel ises to the ceiling, roses in pots on the ground, lining the walls as hedges, hanging like a bridal veil. This, too, persuaded me that I was in a dream. Who had ever seen so many roses in one place?  
In the middle of the greenhouse, a shadow moved.  
Was it him? Adrian?  
I had been avoiding him all these days. Now, I really wanted to see him, but just see him, not talk to him. Part of the reason I'd been avoiding him, I realized, was not just fear of what he might do to me, but fear of myself. I was afraid he'd be hideous and, more than that, I feared my reaction to him. I've always prided myself on being kind, being understanding. But my father had called Adrian a monster, my father, who'd seen all kinds of ugliness. What if I cringed when I saw him? What if I cried? What if, like Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, I found I simply couldn't look at him at all? I didn't want to be shallow, cruel. I wanted to be better than the students at Tuttle, who'd looked down on me because I didn't have the right clothes, the right family, the right money. What if I wasn't?  
Now, though, maybe I could see him without him seeing me. The living room was dark, the greenhouse well lit. I stepped forward.  
He had been partially hidden by the roses, but now, as if he knew I was watching, he came into view. He was pacing, I realized, and when he stepped out from behind the vines, I could see his face.  
I gasped. My father hadn't been wrong or crazy or strung out. Adrian was a monster. He looked like no one I'd seen outside a movie. At first, I could only see his body.  
He was tall, tall and slim, and if I'd seen him from the back, I'd have assumed he was handsome, but as soon as his face became visible from the shadows, I knew he wasn't.  
Blond hair—fur—covered every inch of his face and what I could see of him. His hands had claws, but his face was weirder. The nose, long and wolflike, sloped downward to a mouth with white, fanged teeth. The hair on his head had been brushed to shield as much of his face as possible, but it did little good. It was blond and long, and from beneath it, I could see the most beautiful wide, blue eyes. They seemed to glow, somehow, from the darkness. They seemed to meet mine.  
I realized he was looking at me. Could he see me staring? Of course not. Yet those blue eyes—oddly familiar—seemed to plead with me.  
Again, I backed away. I stumbled across the dark room, half expecting footsteps to pursue me. None came. I didn't see Kendra again, in human or bird form. Not caring how much noise I made, I stumble-ran upstairs, slammed and locked my door. I staggered to bed. Only then did I realize I was crying. Not for me, not for me, for him. I wanted to hate, not pity Adrian, yet how could I not pity someone who looked like him, someone so pathetic and twisted and ruined? What accident could cause such a thing? No accident, other than an accident of birth.  
What would it be like to be this way, to have people run from you?  
And yet, his roses were so beautiful. He understands beauty.  
I had seen him. I could look at him now, I thought, without cringing. Part of me still hated him, wanted to hate him for making me pity him. Before, I could live in the world, not knowing that someone like Adrian existed, and not somewhere far off, not like the cleft-palate babies you see in magazines, the blind beggars in Slumdog millionaire, but really, in my own neighborhood. I couldn't ignore him. I pictured the pleading look in those eyes. I had to take pity on him.  
Still, I cried, I cried for him until I fell asleep.  
Or had I always been asleep? I was dreaming, wasn't I? I looked up and saw Kendra, still standing there, still singing weirdly. Then, her mixed-up words became real ones. She sang:  
Now, his name means darknessBut once, it meant face is hideous as a thornBut within, he is a rose, to to him. That was the last thing I remembered before I fell asleep for real. When I woke next, it was midday. No sign of Kendra, but my room was filled with roses of every color.  
The fact is, I'm stuck here, whether it's because my father needs me to be or because I need to run away from my life, I'm here, alone. Adrian is stuck here too, lonely, ugly, so desperate for companionship he was willing to resort to blackmail to get it. But I understand now. I understand, and it would be cruel for me to ignore him.  
I understand, and I know that, tonight, I will do as Dream Kendra said.  
I will go to him.  
All day, I sat on my bed and tried to read, but I was restless, excited, I realized, at the thought of meeting Adrian. I'd sworn to stay in my room forever, but when it came down to it, it was just too difficult. I've never been good at sulking. When I was a kid, if I argued with a friend or one of my sisters, I'd pledge never to speak to her again. I usually lasted an hour, maybe less.  
And, of course, I always forgave my dad, too.  
It was the same here. If I knew I'd be safe, I'd give the guy a chance, just to have someone to talk to.  
So when Magda came to bring me my oatmeal, I stopped her.  
"What's he like? Why does he want me here?" She looked a little surprised, then shrugged and said,  
"He is lonely. That is all."  
I nodded and took the oatmeal. It was as I thought, not a murderer or rapist, just a freakish, friendless boy, a lonely soul. Like me.  
"And you . . . like him?" I asked Magda.  
She said she did.  
It makes sense. After all, isn't it always the handsome, outgoing, "normal" guys who turn out to be dangerous wack jobs? Every time they arrest a guy for killing tons of women, his neighbors always say they never suspected.  
That he was perfectly normal.  
Wouldn't it then follow that deformed, reclusive freaks are actually safer than normal people?  
Well, it made sense in my head.  
I waited for nightfall. After everyone was asleep, I picked up the dinner dishes and brought them downstairs to the kitchen, just to have an excuse to be there. I made noise so he'd know I was up. I heard him in the living room, watching television. I listened at the door. It was some sporting event that must have happened hours earlier.  
Still, it comforted me that he was watching sports, not some History Channel special about virgin sacrifice.  
Finally, after a minute, I went in.  
Finally, after a minute, I went in.  
His back was to me. He said, "I'm here. I want you to know so you won't freak."  
Freak. Even I cringed at the word, but I stepped toward him.  
For one moment, everything froze. Me, standing there, the baseball game on television, Adrian, staring ahead but—I now knew—not really paying attention to it. The room was shadowy-dark, and I could only see the back of his head. It was so normal.  
Then, he turned to meet my eyes.  
At close range, in the dim light, I found I was more fascinated than repulsed by Adrian's face. I stared at the counterclockwise whorls of fur at the edges of his nose, the eyes human, but wider set than my own. On its own merits, his face wasn't ugly, wasn't repel ant at all. On its own merits, Adrian's face had an almost catlike beauty.  
It was just . . . he was supposed to be human.  
He saw me staring and looked down. "Please. I won't hurt you. I know I look this way, but I'm not . . . please. I won't hurt you, Lindy."  
I started babbling, trying to cover my faux pas of staring at him with the greater faux pas of too much talk, too many stupid things I don't want to remember. He started trying to change the subject, talking about the dinner we'd eaten, what a good cook Magda was, normal stuff, anything to shut me up. He sounded perfectly normal.

Which made me feel sorrier for him.  
"When I used to live with my father," Adrian said, still talking about the food, "he never wanted Magda to make Latin dishes. She just made regular stuff then, meat and potatoes. But when he left us here, I didn't really much care what I ate, so she started making this stuff." He meant his father. His father had left him. I said, "What do you mean he left you here? Where's your father now?" He looked away, as if he knew he'd said too much, but he said he lived with Magda and Will, that Will was his tutor. I could tell he was trying to keep it very normal, trying not to upset me. It was all so abnormal, though. But then, what in my life wasn't?  
"Tutor?" I asked, just to keep the conversation as normal as he wanted it.  
as he wanted it.  
"A teacher, really, I guess. Since I can't go to school because . . . anyway, he homeschools me." And I wondered. "How old are you?"  
"Sixteen. Same as you."  
Sixteen. My father had said he was a teenager, but he was all alone. Of course, I was alone too. "Where are your parents?" I asked. He knew I was just as abandoned as he was.  
He didn't say it, though. Instead, he said, "My mother left a long time ago. And my father . . . well, he couldn't handle that I looked like this. He's into normalcy." My mind flooded with questions. Had he always looked this way? Was his father cruel to him? Did he treat him like a freak, like in The Phantom of the Opera? The house, all of it, was beautiful, but how could he live here, how could he grow up with no nurturing? Of course, my father didn't exactly nurture me either, but at least I could try to live a normal life. Just thinking about him, trapped here, brought tears to my eyes. Now, it was I who looked away.  
"Do you miss him?" I asked, still not looking. "Your father?"  
He shook his head. "I try not to. I mean, you shouldn't miss people who don't miss you, right?" I nodded, and said something about my own father, so he'd know I understood, even though I couldn't, not really, not the level of it. We were the same, motherless, fatherless, both freaks in our own way. We were the same. I was here because I was meant to be.  
Adrian was the one who changed the subject away from our mutual patheticness. He asked if I wanted Will to tutor me, too. I heard myself saying yes. I felt myself meaning it. I feel like, maybe, I was meant to be here, meant to help this poor guy.  
He told me they were reading Shakespeare's sonnets.  
Then, he invited me to see his rose garden.  
"I'd like that." I said I would meet him there tomorrow.  
And after a few more stupid statements on my part, a few more awkward ones on his, I started up to bed.  
It has begun.  
Only when I reached my room did I think to ask what else they were studying, what math, what social studies.  
Funny how Adrian had homed in on reading, on literature, as if he knew it was what I loved. Does he have Magda spying on me, to know I read all day? Crazy. I went back downstairs but stopped.  
As I approached the living room, I heard a voice, quietly whooping. Through the door, I could see someone, a boy my own age, more human than not, doing a wild victory dance around the room.


End file.
